Carolyn Wells (1) (1862–1942)

If you liked Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott, you will most assuredly enjoy this book. It's not heavy on plot, but is fairly engaging anyway. It's about a young girl who is going to spend a year with four of her different relatives in turn. Then when she is reunited with her father, they will set up housekeeping together and she will have figured out exactly what kind of lifestyle/household is best for them, by observing the varied ways that her relatives have of managing their homes. Her father charges her to find out what "proportion" means by taking note of what her relatives do either too much or too little. It's pretty cute, and sometimes funny. It's evidently the first in a series, and I liked it enough to start the second one, "Patty at Home."… (meer)

The first part is Patty's attempt to win a little electric car in a contest. From the title of the book you can tell that she is successful. Then she and her family decide to buy a summer home on the beach. All of Patty's friends come up for a visit. Patty turns 19 in this book. She's still not socially considered an adult, but her relationships are starting to get slightly more complicated. Not too much more to say, except that I did enjoy it. Patty's adventures with her new car were kind of amusing, and it was fun to see how driving a car back then was more of a sport than a necessity, and there were specific clothes and accessories for it. I had to laugh when the author made such a point about how clever and ingenious it was that the car actually had locks on the doors!!… (meer)

A bit of a departure from the normal tone of the Patty books. The theme of this one might well be "Patty in trouble, please rescue." First she is kidnapped and held for ransom. That takes up at least half of the book. Then, when Phil Van Reypen (one of Patty's most serious suitors) gets his aunt to ask Patty to take a road trip with them by way of giving her opportunity to recover her nerves from the ordeal of being kidnapped, most everything goes well, but just at the last Patty is marooned for a while on a little island, because another suitor (but this one an undesirable, crass one that Patty and her people agree is not "nice") stole her canoe so that he could show up in the guise of rescuer. Fortunately Patty escapes from his clutches and gets rescued by the right people.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the frequency with which Bill Farnsworth, Patty's other serious suitor, gets to make trips to New York. He is from somewhere out west, and it's got to be at least a few days by train, and this is the early 1910s, so travel is not exactly as simple as it is today. Yet he always seems to be showing up exactly when wanted, because a business deal has coincidentally brought him back east. Were young men really that mobile in 1915 or whenever it was, that they could cross the country at the drop of a hat? It just seems like he gets to be around for a lot more than is realistic. And then he's always like, "Rats, I have to take the next train back home because of a business deal, and it's absolutely imperative that I leave now," but then if he doesn't get to see Patty and say farewell he somehow manages to postpone that oh-so-imperative departure without it materially making a difference. Oh, well.

This is one of the few Patty books that's unavailable online, and not too common in print. It's not the best example of what, to me, typifies the Patty books, but I'm glad I can check it off the list as I read the series in order.… (meer)